Five years ago Carl Johnson escaped from the pressures of life in Los Santos, San Andreas... a city tearing itself apart with gang trouble, drugs and corruption. Where filmstars and millionaires do their best to avoid the dealers and gangbangers.
Now, it's the early 90s. Carl's got to go home. His mother has been murdered, his family has fallen apart and his childhood friends are all heading towards disaster. On his return to the neighborhood, a couple of corrupt cops frame him for homicide. CJ is forced on a journey that takes him across the entire state of San Andreas, to save his family and to take control of the streets.

Take the time to look up "Playboy: The Mansion", "The Sims 2". You will find sex, nudity. Sims 2 is the next game on list to be attacked. Yet these games carry a M rating (The Sims carries T) and GTA San Andreas is bitch-slapped wit

We are born into this world bucknekkid. We are confronted with nudity, in one form or another, on a daily basis. Early Renaissance Artists, like Donatello, "studied under both Ghiberti and Brunelleschi, and went on to create several masterpieces for Cosimo de Medici in Florence. His most important work is the David, which depicts the Hebrew king in the classical style of a Greek god, and was the first freestanding nude figure sculpted since the Roman era. Donatello went on to create the first bronze statue of the Renaissance, showing an incredibly realistic soldier on horseback."

And yet, we manage to find ourselves in the day and age where the presence of nudity and sex is a concern. This brings me to discuss the very strange situation that has occurred as of recent.

A well known modeling (when you make a model with tools for games or mods) site known as Polycount allows users to submit their work. This article was written based of the creator of the model you see mentioned in the article. The part that stands out to me, besides the model itself, is what the writer of the article said. " I see the gaming community as a safe harbor for our collective efforts. No one is making money off of this; this is the key by the way. We’re all just having fun making things and such. But on the open seas of the ‘real world’ a lot of our practices would be considered downright piracy and would be squashed under the heels of a posse of lawyers. The series of suggestions comes from this reality. At a base level, you must give others respect. Whether you want it or not yourself, it is your responsibility when you work within a community such as ours. You cannot produce items based off others work that degrades the original and offer it to the public at large. It doesn’t matter if the work is from the developer of the game you are working with, another community artist or anyone. It doesn’t matter if you are using a model, idea, picture, skin, character or whatever else. If it is someone’s original work, these issues apply. It’s about respecting the work of others. Rogue13".

When the news came out on the Coffee Mod so many sites tried to give you the story, even some who hyped it up to get hits and clicks to their site. Seriously read what some of these sites had to say:

Take2Games.com: The news post that set the world and many gaming sites on fire!

MTV Gaming News: The bottom line, modders like Aaron BlueWolf72 Molloy point out, is that game code can be changed and often there's little that can be done to stop it. The concern among people in the gaming community is how the outside world, represented by critics like Thompson and politicians like Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, will respond.

GameSpot.com: "The ESRB's decision to re-rate a game based on an unauthorized third party modification presents a new challenge for parents, the interactive entertainment industry and anyone who distributes or consumes digital content," Eibler continued. "Rockstar Games is pleased that the investigation is now settled and they look forward to returning their focus to making innovative and groundbreaking video games for a mature audience."

Bit-Tech.net: Senator Hillary Clinton has stepped into the controversy over sex scenes in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The senator wants the US Federal Trade Commission to find out who put the explicit material in the game.

Yahoo News: On a 355-21 vote, the House passed a resolution asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the game's manufacturer, Rockstar Games, and its parent company, New York-based Take Two Interactive Software Inc.

I could even reference sites that posted their idea of what the lost income would be due to this drama (Grama = Gaming Drama), which, as far as we know are just being pulled from a hat. So I had to find out for myself. I emailed Walmart, BestBuy and Gamestop to find out what they are planing to do and they replied with what I thought they would:

*BestBuy.com

Thank you for contacting Best Buy about the San Andreas Playstation game. I'm Kathy with Customer Care.

We'd be happy to help you with your inquiry. Best Buy has removed the Sony Playstation San Andreas game from our store locations July 23. It is not our intention to encourage ideas and ideals that are contrary to those valued by our customers, and we are always evaluating customer response to our advertisements and product offerings. We value receiving your comments so we may use this feedback to improve the shopping and service experience for all our customers.

We look forward to your next visit to one of our stores or to www.BestBuy.com.. Please don't hesitate to contact us with additional questions or concerns.

New York, NY – July 26, 2005 – Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO) announced today that it has been notified that the staff of the Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) Division of Advertising Practices is conducting an inquiry into advertising claims made for Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. The Company intends to fully cooperate with the FTC inquiry, and believes that it acted in accordance with all applicable laws and regulations. The Company cooperated with a recently concluded Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) investigation into this matter and has taken decisive and immediate corrective action.

Patrick, the creator of the Coffee Mod, will not interview with media or mod fan sites like modDB.com but he did have this to say:

Patrick:

A fellow modder "Barton Waterduck" discovered the sex-animations on the PS2 DVD [th]en found some links to it in the mission script. From there I analyzed the parts of the mission script that referenced the animations. At that point a lot of the opcodes used in the mission-script were still unknown, and it took me weeks to figure out the workings of that piece of code. It slowly became apparent that the[re] was a 'nearly' complete mini-game, which was blocked out of the normal gameplay by a "censor flag".

There are indeed no 'official' publisher provided modding tools, but that is one of the charms of the GTA modding scene. All data-file formats have been figured out by the scene itself, and all tooling used is home-brewn by the scene. To analyze the code I used some scripting I wrote myself, but meanwhile there are better tools for doing this ( SA Builder), and better tooling in underway.

I have no significant modding knowledge on games outside the GTA-series, so I don't know whether there exists other M-rated games with similar hidden content.

In closing, I honestly feel that if Take2Games is forced to comply that the game they built will loose it's luster as a mod teams choice to mod. The game you will pass up on as you walk the gaming store and see GTA San Andreas on the shelf. It still amazes me how far this has gone. I'm curious how it ends!

modDB.com Members Point Of View:

"No offense intended to anyone other than the people who resort to blaming Video Games, for being one of the causes of violence amongst this generation of kids. They say that Games and Music cause violence, well what Video games did Hitler play? You know why Parents go along with blaming Violent Games? Its because they need something to blame so because they don't want to face the facts that they are shitty parents. Instead of blaming it on something else they should actually look at the facts, yes Games can start that fuse that leads to violence in some but its the parents fault for not putting a halt to that spark before it can do any damage - Adrian Shephard"

Other modDB.com Staff Input:

"A movie is given its rating based on what the viewer sees, cut scenes are irrelevant - they don't make it to the final release. I don't believe this situation is any different, the undeniable fact cited by Rockstar and the 'Hot Coffee Mod' author, is that the shelf release of GTA 3 San Andreas does not allow the user to witness such content. A hack by definition can be written by anyone, to do anything totally outside the control of the original developer. Therefore a games rating should not be penalised for this fact even if the game lends itself to such exploitation - Scott (Mod Database moddb.com)"

"People getting all bent out of shape for a sex scene in GTA: SA is completely stupid. This game, intended for mature audiences in the first place, is made to be played by people with at least a rudimentary idea of what’s right and wrong. Parents shouldn’t be surprised that little Billy was masturbating to some sloppily hidden (and poorly rendered) sex game placed there by a hacker or disgruntled programmer. Game development must be a lonely business. Anyway, Rockstar will be retracting all it’s copies of San Andreas, and will now be releasing a version with a “clean” code, which will render the (already taken down) Hot Coffee mod useless - Sticky (Mod Database moddb.com)"

"The content of the "Hot Coffee" crack hardly amounts to a modification, and the programmer responsible for unveiling the locked content should not be held responsible for the adult content unlocked by installing the "Hot Coffee" crack. Rockstar Games released Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas with this content on the game discs, and the Hot Coffee modification merely unlocked it for the player.

Furthermore, I personally find it laughable that a pathetic clothed sex scene causes such a stir, and raises the games rating from M to AO. So people 17 and over are allowed to pick up prostitutes, "use them", then beat them over there head repeatedly with a baseball bat until they fall to the ground dead and start leaking blood (or even repeatedly stab them in the genital area), but you must be 18 to play a pathetic mini-game simulating consensual sex? Not to mention how hypocritical this rating system is, what difference does one year make? Does the ESRB board hire psychologists to evaluate the ages at which teenagers can "safely" see this stuff - San-J (Mod Database moddb.com)"

"As a part of the mod community, it's been sad to say this is the outcome of our dedication. Every day all kinds of people spend most of their days and hours creating their form of art. People who develop mods aren't always doing it to please an audience, but simply to please themselves. There is nothing more satisfying then simply completing something you have created. There are those who have blamed us for various creations like the hot coffee mod or nudity patches in The Sims, but in reality, it is not our fault. Everyone has their own mind and creations, and simply unlocking a hidden feature from a game can be rewarding to some people who mod. But i've read articles about society blaming the community for these tragic events, and the possibilities of less modification capabilities really upsets me. It's almost in a sense telling 3D designers they can't use their software or talents to it's full potential. Modders should have control of what they create and not anyone else. Most mods aren't linked together with the big industry or companies, it's why we do what we do. This should remove blame from the game company since mods have nothing to do with them - MasterChopChop (Mod Database moddb.com)"

Good article. I can not believe how ignorant some people can be when it comes to games. This is like if they would change the rating on Counter-Strike because someone created a blood-mod, makes no sense what so ever. There is even a woman who bought GTA:SA for her 14-year-old grandson that is suing Rockstar for this. Obviously, this ridiculous sex-scene is nothing a 14-year old can handle. Chainsaw murders are okay though.

and to what azelito was saying, if your 14 years old, the rating system says not to buy it so there's no way rockstar can get sued. I think this whole extravaganza is ridiculous. If its a mod than it can only be played on pc (for the most part) and if "little billy" is on the pc he will probably find something while typing his own name under a google image search or something.

It is realy stupid how they think that just changing the games rating will make a differance in anything..... I think this is one of the biggest things that lead to game piracy,some 13 year old kid not being able to get a version where he can use this hot coffe mod, will try to get one from online.

Sex sells, is a phrase that came from america, now it is forbidden?
Besides, that killing and all the other bad things are not mentioned.
For me as an outstanding person it looks like the public opinion in america is, killing is cool and sex is forbidden.
Pretty weird and i dont want a worldpolice with such behavior.
What is wrong in america?
Would american families rather see their kids kill somebody then having sex?

Most of the parents who are whining about this don't follow the rating system because they don't care enough to check what their kid is buying. Beyond that, they don't care to investigate the modding culture and so don't realize how diverse it is. Some guy like Thompson tells them that kids are making violent or sex mods with games like SA or the Sims 2 (pixellated as it is) and they eat up because they don't have any other source of information, and aren't willing to look for one, which means they miss out on the fact that not all mods and games are about blowing people away or having sex.
Sheep.

I'm amazed that people like that are so quick to blame video games for the few violent crimes linked to video games, but don't bother considering the unimportant stuff like economic status, whether or not the kids in a single or dual parent household, relations with their parent(s), academic status, etc

What really might be the problem with this sue story is that the rating was set to 17+ when some say that it should really have been 18+. No matter if she bought it for her 14 year old boy, she was expecting a game with the 17+ rating. It could aswell have been a 17 year old who bought it but got a 18 year olds game. You get my point. Although it is stupid, it might work.
Personally I dont agree with changing the rating on the game. This content is not available in the game itself and although it might have shipped with it, you can not access it in the game. Since it is the game that is being rated, and not what they removed during the process of making it, the original rating should stay.
On a side note, having both the AO and the M rating is stupid. What difference does this one year do to a human? I would say, set them both to 18 and problem solved, for ever. This game wouldnt have to be re-rated.

First of All: Rockstar games cannot be held responsible for content that is hidden from the public, whether or not Modders realease patches that open up the hidden content. That is the Modders choice and thier responsibility.

It is also the responsibility of the Modder to give a rating that they believe to be appropriate for the content they are to release. Not because it says so anywhere, but because of common courtesy.

Next; I agree with "azelito". The game has brutal murder scenes and depicts criminal behaviour but parents have a problem with a little casual sex. What the Hell is wrong with you People? Someone must've had Sex to have the Kid for Christ's sake, unless he's some sort of second Jesus.

"Temporal" raises a good point also, did any of you Parent's actully have a look at what you bought your kid. NO!! I DIDN'T FCUKING THINK SO!! SO SHUT YOUR UGLY HOLES!! But this isn't just the parents fault. I blame the companies who sell the games. I saw at least 6 fourteen-year-olds go into a local games store and buy GTA:SA on the release day, when they were supposed to be in school. They weren't asked for ID, they weren't challenged in anyway, no one stopped to think, "Wait a second these Kids are a bit young aren't they????"

But back to the point in hand, the game shouldn'r have been re-rated by the ESRB because it was an addon that was downloaded by the user for the user. If they didn't want the content or if they found it to be inappropriate they should remove it and in the case of the Granmother, she should watch more closely what content her grandson is accessing

...You go and buy a game. Later you find out that there was - spyware / tracking software / something else you don't want - also on the disk. The publisher says "Not our fault, we disabled it" after someone artistically enabled it (we call them folks hackers, but they think it's art too) and did bad things to your PC or network. Are you ****** off that the publisher left it on the disk and let you take it home? Do you wonder why it was left there in the first place?

You may want to reconsider your thoughts above...because if you think what Rockstar did was fine, then you think the same about my scenario and the door that it opens.

If you look at the bigger picture, it's all about *undeclared* content, not this specific content.

You both missed my point. Typically when you run the installation program for an application, you are really trusting the company to not put anything on your machine that you didn't expect. It's all about full disclosure. To me that is the real issue.

Sure, a bunch of folks are bent out of shape on this specific content, but the real long term issue is whether publishers are going to have to be more careful about checking to see if the game developer has anything additional that needs to be disclosed to the user. When was the last time you installed a piece of software and double checked the purpose of every file that got installed? You can't. You have to *trust* them. And this incident brings that trust issue to the forefront in a way most folks had never thought about. Who knows what's really on that disc? That's what I was talking about.

I've worked in the software industry for 20 years, and you guys need to forget this specific complaint on smutty content and look at the loopholes that this issue is revealing.

@Cheezo: Who says the game designer didn't install a harvesting program to get a bit of additional information from your computer along with your online gaming data? Hmmm? That's the trust I'm talking about.

@Guest: How can you tell that the game developer and publisher are holding up their end of the trust issue...that they are not installing things you don't want installed? When's the last time you got a complete list of the programs that were going to be installed and what they do?

The things you see in television can manipulate your thoughts. Even if the BroadCasting stations say they dont want to do that and people should think on their own, many people follow the public opinion, even if its useless dumb or whatsoever.
Oh and soroc why dont you burn your television? It switches on when you are not at home and lets your 11 year old boy watch 17+ action thrillers. I really think this is an excuse for bad parents as they do not have the time to watch their kids (which normally results in mental problems for the Kids though) and now they blame others for giving their children the opportunity to do things they wont allow.

I don't see how one little sex scene can cause this big of a problem. They're saying that one little sex scene is worse than blowing up a crowd of people with a rocket launcher. Like I said before if they didn't want game players to see the sex scene they shouldn't have put it on the disk. IT IS THEIR FAULT FOR LEAVING IT ON THE DISK. They knew that someone could unlock it yet they released it anyway.

So if you have to download the Patch to make sex scene veiwable what makes the patch any different from the Laura Croft and the Sims nude patches? Why haven't games such as Leisure Suit Larry MCL (the new one) and The Playboy Mansion gotten the boot from stores, not to mention why are they not rated Adult, they are rated mature like San Andreas, although they are worse habited.

Leisure Suit Larry has a cheat built into the game,(mind you, you don't have to download somthing extra) that lets all the Female characters become nude and in practially every cut-scene there is either rude sexual remarks, or Larry is having sex with someone and it is still on store shelves and still rated M when I think it is worse sexually, and racially discriminating than GTA:SA.

Playboy Mansion is like drunk Sims on crack, you can make the Playmates Strip down to their undies and topless, and if you really want to theres a patch (mind you this is the EXACT SAME THING as why they are giving GTE:SA the boot) that lets you take of the Playmates panties (you can already have them topless). And this game is only rated M. Dosen't it make you think about why they haven't been given the AO rating but SA which has a patch that kids have to go online to download and they have to Search on the torrent sites (since right now thats the only place I could find it, and before you say anything I'm not that big of a pervert, I just heard of the scandle and wanted to see how hard it was to find that patch, and although I found it there were no seeds and the server was down.)

You people might be thinking, but the kids parents would know better than to buy games such as TPbM and LSLMCL. You would be correct, but if they know better than to buy those M rated games for their children, shouldn't they be the blame for getting a game that for years has created massive amounts of controversy. And finnaly If they would keep all this out of the news I bet close to 100% of the world wouldn't know about this patch, and almost 40% of America would be trying to ban the game off our shelves because they bought it for their children and didn't think that the game had correct morals for their 10-11 year old kid who wanted the game for his/her birthday and their parents bought it, and yet they blame the producers and the manufacturs of the game for making them buy it for their kid.

:D I'm done ranting, have any comments? Feel free to PM I like hearing about how you enjoyed or disliked my rant.

1. If it is OK for Rockstar and the publisher to put this hidden content on the disc without you, the consumer, knowing about it, then...

2. ...It follows that software publishers are not bound to fully disclose what is on the disc you are instlling from, so...

3. ...How long do you think it would be before someone tried to push the envelope further in regards to putting a few "extras" on a software disc (game or otherwise) that you bought and installed? Then the door is open for anything.

And I'm not talking about hidden porn scenes in the latest version of your word processing program. Companies won't find that profitable...but there are other things that they might find are very profitable to do...without you knowing.

But hey, if you're willing to let them do whatever they want to do without being accountable to anyone, more power to you. I mean, we all know that corporate America has done such a good job in the past of monitoring themselves to ensure they do the right thing, right?

Well, I do believe that bluewolf originally intended for this to be an interview untill the author of Hot Coffee backed out of it at the last min. I guess maybe he forgot to change it to article? not a big deal

Im lazy as hell and don't feel like reading all your posts so im just going to say one thing. I hear a lot of people, on other forums and such whining over this and how it destroys the worlds youth by enabling a sexual scene in an M rated video game. Now let me ask you this, how does one go about finding this mod and downloading it. They probably heard about it or googled it right? Now, if a child is googling sex mods for GTA, then wtf else do you think they google. The internet is FULL of REAL pornographic that is easily accessible by any minor. So, why is there so much fighting over this? Children are forsaken in todays modern world, the internet is full of porn and theres no hiding it. Come on..

i heard something on g4 about how hillary clinton said that we have to protectthe kids from this kind of sexual content. but what i find a little crazy is that the game has a M rating its not ment for kids anyway. It even say strong sexual content on the back of the case i dont feel there was a need to put an AO rating. another thing that bothers me is they also say that this will make kids be sexually active at a younger age but arnt most 17 year old sexually active anyway not all but alot. yes some five year old is going to have sex because he saw it on gta its all bull. this was a great article keep up the good work.